workshop is

Workshop: Eight to ten people talking about a poem none of them could’ve written.

allow it to happen

Let’s have fewer ‘generative’ workshops and more that are inspirational.

evidently confident

Judging from the number of workshops being offered, many writers evidently are confident that they can teach good writing.

engine for perception

Be on guard! Don’t let your language go slack and without purpose. Let it be an engine for perception, a testing ground for truth, and a finite lens to the infinite.

—Bert Meyers during a workshop, quoted by Maurya Simon in “Fire Undressed My Bones: Remembering Poet Bert Meyers,” Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master, edited by Dana Levin and Adele Elise Williams (Unsung Masters Series, 2023)

workshop of the three little pigs

When the wolf came upon the first poem he could see the lines were just straw. A half-inhale was all it took to blow away the poem. The second poem he came to was made of sticks, and with a great gust of breath he blew apart the poem. But the last poem he encountered was a stanza made of brick, and no matter how hard he tried to blow and blow, the brick box held.

not safe

The poetry workshop should not be a safe space. They’re talking about your poem, not you.

known unknown

The poet always knows more about the poem than you do.

piñata poem

Sitting in the workshop hearing the others critique his poem he began to visualize them as blind-folded children flailing at the air, trying to strike the piñata in hopes it would spill some candy and trinkets at their feet.

taken aback

After reading her poem in the workshop group she could hear a scuffing sound as chairs pushed back a little ways from the table.

critique carry forward

The critique of this poem may not matter; however, that critique may inform the next poem.

hold your tongue

In a workshop if one person is always the first speak, then he/she sets the trajectory of the discussion. Don’t be first to speak all the time.

finer points

The members of the workshop were much too comfortable using power tools, when precision instruments were called for.

cadaver explained

All in the workshop concurred the poem was dead. What followed was an autopsy of the poem.

duly noted

It’s not important what others in the workshop say about your poem, it’s only important what you hear enough to take note of.

wait as they whet

One of those pauses during a writing workshop when in the background you could hear steel being sharpened on a grinding wheel.

small window

He talked in those commonplaces of the workshop method, thus you could tell that everything he knew about poetry was learned in the couple of years he’d spent in a MFA program.

like the movie line

There’s no crying in workshop.

sample audience

The workshop as focus group.

unassailable offering

She wrote a workshop-proof poem.

exercise room

Trying to teach poetry with the ‘freeing strictures’ of exercises/prompts.